Blog Comments & Posts

Inspired by bookworm seo and his latest post "Email Marketing for Linkbait - It's the Distribution, Stupid" I decided to add my $0.02 to the discussion about newsletters. I wrote down 7 things you should know about email marketin...

I always felt bad that I am not using black hat techiques. It just doesn't stick to my innerself as I like to deliver real value. I blamed myself that I don't want to be as effective as other SEO guys. I don't feel guilty anymore :) Thanks!

I am wondering if Black Hat SEO is a manipulation.
Although it is not moral and fair if you spam forums and blogs from a search engine user perspective if the content is relevant it is not a manipulation.
I am not a fan of Black Hat... just my $0.02.

Jamersan, I like the concept of User Experience Optimization. It is SEO for real - no paid links, black hat etc.

I agree there are still many people who will do everything to rank their affiliate high. Then, when Google cut them out, they cry that their life and main income source has been killed by an evil SE.

We should earn reputation. The same way as ilovetypography.com blog did (I wrote about it in one of my previous comments). They are second on 'typography'. Almost 20,000 RSS subscriptions in 10 months.

Sometimes I feel stupid and naive while going the white hat way. Other people use grey and they are fine. Generate more revenue, are more successful.

SEO is sometimes like a gamble. Even for highly reputable websites I work on. Today I am on the first page, tomorrow on 5th without a reason. Old domain, PR 6 or 7, no paid links, no grey techniques... That is why I also like PPC because they are predictable and measurable.

"Trying to create results without being able to touch websites (sometimes) and still be expected to create miracles."

You will find this in in-house as well :-) They don't deserve high ranks, then... I still don't understand companies who don't want to work hard but want to earn money.

One example - ilovetypography.com. Amazing blog about typography. 2nd on 'typography' on Google. Founded August last year. I don't think John bought any links. What I know he has got fantastic content and he is at the top. He desrves it. When somebody is looking for typography, they won't be disappointed with the content on this site. This is what Google is for...

What would you do if you were Google and relevancy was your main target? If there was a better method than links, they would use it, right? Every SEO expert is saying that in another 3-5 years nothing will change with links...

Can't agree more! Maybe I am naive but I still believe in Google. Maybe because of the way they started this business... they wanted to have a good product and they didn't care for money for the long time....

As I have written above, Google does not improve organic ranking for money. They send traffic for money. Why the site that buys links should be treated as relevant? Because the owners know SEO tactics?

It is like your colleague at work doing half of the job you do and earning twice as you only because he knows a few people. He is not smarter, he does not work harder so why should he earn more?

I think it is about ethics but Google is in the difficult position to show it that way...

Eric Schmidt is a member of both Google and Apple boards and they don't need sitemaps, webmaster centrals or any of these. If they wanted to be no. 1 in Google in the UK, they would be. Why they are not? Because Chuck Norris said so.

Will, I was wondering how important hosting location is in this kind of cases. If I target the USA, is it ok to host a site in Canada? I always receive mixed opinions.

Regarding internationalisation, many people use Amazon Affiliate links on their sites but they are never bothered to display different links for visitors from the UK. I click a lot on them and I am always transferred to amazon.com instead of amazon.co.uk... missed revenue opportunities?

As other people mentioned, this data is quite general and only involves internet users, but still it will be great to observe what is happening with these two candidates in the coming months on Google Trends. Final comparison may be quite interesting.

Google Trends can be a powerful tool. Thanks for reminding. This one is interesting (SEO vs. PPC):

Danny, thanks for your conlusions in the post. I am wondering what is the comparison of traffic quality when you add Sphinn to this analysis. For many industries niche social media is much more valuable...

3. Your own online business that slowly becomes profitable. You can use some % of money from 1 & 2 and reinvest it by outsourcing all the development & design. Like a plant - use a bit of water, let others take care of the hardwork, look after and make sure it grows in the right direction.

If you have any bad feeling about your prospective client and your gut tells you not to take on the project, then leave it. Sometimes it is tempting to stay when you secured a nice price for your hard work, but still... it may cost you much more in the end.

Moondog, it is great that you don't have to deal with many clients. You can focus and do what you are the best at.

I reckon Omniture would have more data from Hitwise than their own database.

But your post made me think about WebTrends and their Dynamic Search which is the PPC system which optimises combinations of keywords, ads and landing pages for you. Omniture Search Center is just to manage all campaigns in one place, but WebTrends offer something more. They algorithms must learn from other companies' campaigns...

It is very popular these days to offer some free videos with valuable information about certain topic and put newsletter box next to it - "want more of our great stuff? Subscribe!". If the content is good enough, people will link to it on Social Media sites. I know it is not a rocket science but it worked with me as I have subscribed to a few newsletters recently through this simple mechanism.

Lorisa, good tip about a reliable provider. It is not worth cutting costs in this area. I totally agree about users having interest in what you're selling. It is always about being relevant, isn't it?

I believe each newsletter should be eye catching. Sometimes putting a small image next to a section helps to figure what it is about in a fraction of a second instead of just reading text. As you analyse emails carefully in terms of analytics, do you have any tips how images, font sizes etc. influence CTR?

Newsletters might be very powerful in leveraging your current audience, like RSS is for blogs. I built a what's on guide website for one of the cities and newsletter is an integral part of keeping regular visitors informed of where to go out, which film to see and so on.

I would never buy anything from such emails your write about. Newsletter is about ME. I subscribe to newsletter if there is any value for me. Braking news, coupons etc. I once subscribed to Dell newsletters, for example, because I want to know about special deals they had. So there are many areas where newsletters are still very useful and can help you to be successful.

@seo-company-pakistan: that is why permission marketing is really important when it comes to newsletters. Only because somebody purchased a product from you, does not mean they want to read your promo emails. You are right about black-listing issues. It happens even to the most legitimate companies.

My conclusion is that even with the problems with newsletters and growing popularity of RSS, there are still many ways to maximise the potential of email marketing.

@rishil: I will put your points on my list. I like the third option but how does it work on different email apps? Does Gmail handle embedded videos, for example? The first one is very simple but powerful. I saw a few emails with such link but never thought about implementing this tactic. Thanks for your tips.

@Matt, it is a PPC tips day! About dynamic keywords insertion, I think this part is poorly described in many PPC resources but it is a very powerful technique. I don't use it much as I try to have very small ad groups and prepare tailor made ads. This allows me to squeeze in 3-4 words in the title (instead of 2-3 if it was dynamic insertion).

I am also very surprised that so many ads don't have relevant titles. Bolding is the key element.

I run most of my keywords on an exact as I like to be in control but negative keywords is a MUST for the broad match.

One more tip from me: for high competitive keywords where the Google Adwords ads appear at the top of SERP, tweaking the display URL can help a lot. My experiments allowed me to increase CTR from 16% to almost 30%.

@jusfFred, I am really surprised that this column is hidden. It shouldn't be. From my experience, CTR plays quite important role in Quality score. When I rank low on 5-6 place with some small Max CPC the Quality score turns to OK. When I boost it with high Max CPC and it climbs up to 1-2 position and have a high CTR, the "Great" score returns.

@Matthew, add grouping is the key, you are absolutely right. I am also testing a different theory that I learnt - add high performing brand keyword to your most important ad group to leverage other keywords. Do you have any experience in that area?

:) What if Google wanted to patent "search engine" or "the search engine"? They will then set standards to other engines to make sure the 'best practice' is in place. In a good faith, of cours. That would be cool!

Let's say JG is successful and wins a trademark for SEO (which won't happen, of course), what about Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Optimisation? Can we still use it? Just hypothetically...

Ask you mom! Why the simplest solution to a problem is not the most obvious one? My mom is improving her Internet skills everyday! She can even find which coffee machine receives the best reviews. I will teach her blogging.

We need Hamlet to provide us with some real figures. I really like his professional research approach. Too many times we just base our knowledge on what other say or think.

You think "photos" and Flickr comes to your mind. "Every photographer is on Flickr so let's put my photos there. I will have links, friends there etc." It is so easy to get into that kind of trap. Thanks for sharing the solution you found.

Regarding your blog, the background seams very distracting for me and it keeps repeating on higher resolutions.

Richard, I am glad you like Linux. With my new website http://switchstories.com I promote the choice when picking an operating system. We should be fully aware of available options and choose what suits us best. I truly believe Linux Ubuntu is getting stronger on the desktop market becoming a tempting alternative to Windows Vista.

Everybody is talking about Ruby. And you, Mel, spread Ruby addiction too! What is fantastic about all these Ruby based frameworks is that you build websites easier, quicker and focus on promotion, linkbait etc. I really like this agile project management.

Thanks for this post. I have read about 50+ market recently and started to think what kind of business would I be able to open and how to get to this demographic group. It is hard when you are 20 something to figure out their needs. When you are young you think about Web 2.0 sites and geeky topics you are passionate about.

Let's say you want to open some e-commerce site for 50+. What do you do? Gather your grandparents and their friends and do the brainstorming? :) My grand father is 77. He uses Google Earth, is quite good in Photoshop, watches TED videos. But he is not an average user of 50+. This is tricky!

Let's do some brainstorming here. If you were to open an online shop for 50+ what would you sell? Holidays, gifts for your grandchildren? Let's have some fun, people!

I am a bit tired, Jane, of so many start-ups just trying to earn money without any concerns about threats to people's identity.The same with Facebook and their Beacon solution that used to track your behaviour even if you left the site.

Spocks look to me as another Web 2.0 BETA solution. Just look at this profile: http://www.spock.com/Jeff-Robbin Why there is Steve Jobs' photo? It is so obvious that these profiles will be abused.

Remember when www.jigsaw.com got a very bad review on TechCrunch? If you are in the Internet business you should earn visitors and do it fair respecting people's identity as this is becoming a very big issue in the Internet.

Tomorrow SEOMoz will be bombarded by candidates claiming they are from University of Washington :)I got my current job because I had a privilege of learning about SEO from SEOMoz resources and blog. Because of this community I also became an SEO addict. My friend who recommended me this place came to Egypt for holiday last month and he read SEO materials while lying on the beach. Another addict!Thank you, guys! You do more for people than you are aware of.

I like your example with Pizza. It shows how things from offline (ordering process) can be moved to the online world. I am waiting for the next step. Where an online world changes how Pizza is prepared offline - new recipes and ingredients suggested by online visitors (this example is not the best).

Seth Godin once wrote about flights. We can buy tickets online but what if visitors could propose their new routes and locations and it would have an impact on the offline world?

Sandra, thanks for the links. I would be careful about browsers' stats. They are based on w3school web logs and Firefox share - 37% in March 2008 is much higher than average (North America average, for example, is 21.7% according to xitimonitor). The site is visited by tech people and they tend to prefer Firefox over IE.

When talking about nofollow, what do you think about sites that put nofollow to all external links (even if quoting)? I am aware that some people want to avoid link juice leakages, but... does it make sense?

Eric, thanks for reminding us that quality is the future! I am glad that there is more emphasis on creating high value content. With the growing popularity of premium resources, I think the Inernet is heading the right way.

It is great that SEOmoz is getting more creative with SEO education. You bring high standards to the community. Everything you do is always professional - doesn't matter if it is a blog post or a new section on your website.

Facebook is wasting their potential - first with Beacon, now with this "targeting". They are where search engines used to be in 90's. Lack of relevancy.

It is a shame because they struggle to monetize their audience and with the funds they have they should have done better. Maybe this is the 'Vista syndrome' provided by Microsoft. Partner with Google instead :)

Wdeloach, can you recommend any good hosting? MediaTemple is a bit more expensive ($20/month) but has good reputations. The kind of $7/month hosting usually cuts costs on customer support. I have also heard some positive comments from clients about Bluehost. What do you think?

Rebecca, I think you should not worry about retailers being not too enthusiastic. You dealt with passionate people on SES/SMX and your expectations are higher wherever you go now.

People are definitely afraid of asking "obvious" questions because they may not be familiar with SEO, as some people mentioned here. Retailers come to the conference to find solutions and, as NickB wrote, a few practical advices may open their minds and they can get excited about opportunities that SEO brings to their business.

@wrttnwrd: smaller retailers are great. I work with a client who used to be an assistant restaurant manager. One day he opened an online shop with jewelry and got so excited about SEO, that he changed a job and now works for an agency on organic search and PPC. But he is young, open-minded and has his own business. It is easier to be enthusiastic.

@rebecca: I believe that with small changes in the way you speak at shop.org, you will be able to make you audience more passionate about the topic and they will feel more confident to ask questions

Thetjo, I am glad you wrote about group dynamics as I thought about it a few times. I have been reading SEOmoz for a year and observed different discussions below Blog posts. Here are a few findings related to your conclusions:

1. I assume that people with photos/avatars receive more thumbs up that the ones without. It is hard to prove it as usually users who put an effort in uploading a photo to their profile are just more active. For me, people without avatars look a bit like guests, not community members.

2. When I read Sean's comments I looked at his photo and thought "Yes, this guys looks like a leader. He must be important here". Big smile, nice photo background, confident look. We add a lot of value based on our first impression (don't blame me, I have just finished "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell :).

3. I am thinking what would happen if MozPoints where next to the nicks, like in vBulletin. Probably even more thumbs up for leaders. I have read in one of the Seth Godin's books that in one experiment people were given a list of music titles to listen to and pick the best. When they could see others' choices, they would usually give more points for the leading titles, even if they were quite average.

It is just easier to live in the middle of this information storm called Internet where we can cut corners based on our prejudice/impression and follow the masses when choosing leaders. There are too many choices every day to make. Just too many.

Sad story. SEO guys who worked on this niche site should have done their home work. This example shows how cautious we need to be when doing SEO. It is very tempting to treat each site in the same way. It is just easier, isn't it? Start a project, implement changes, finish the project, take money, next please. Working in the long-tail industry requires from us, SEO gurus, to be more sensible and open-minded. Without a respect to the site we work on we can easily kill the heart of it so it is no longer unique. But we like challenges, don't we?

Thanks for this story. It will keep my eyes wide open with my next project.

Regarding point 8, I would prefer not to get frustrated in the very first place. Why? Because the demand for SEO is so high that I just can't be bothered with such "clients".

And it is actually very sad that so many companies don't see their chances in SEO. They think they have a strong brand and ignore other players, especially these with great link building tactics. They stick to old-school methods (telemarketing, off line marketing) and even if they hire somebody to do the SEO job, they still think in the old way. Why? Because their attitude is like that: "we need to do the SEO because others do that".

Virgin Megastores in the UK underestimated online and their business model failed. Big companies are the worst to change. Like big ships. They understand that realities are different, that they now compete with Facebook and YouTube for attention but there are usually just a few people who really feels that. Sad.

Our responsibility is to educate and teach people. If they don't listen then it is not our problem.